LTE Situation Report

Posted by
Sam Churchill
on
January 20th, 2012

The Global Mobile Suppliers Association reports that there are now 269 LTE-enabled user devices, manufactured by 57 companies. It’s a six-fold jump in six months. The GSMA also noted the number of LTE-enabled tablets has doubled in the past six months.

Earlier this year, the GSA reported that 49 operators had launched LTE networks.

The report also considered the availability of devices by frequency band, summarized below for the main LTE bands:

700 MHz (US Digital Dividend, various bands) 142 devices

800 MHz (EU Digital Dividend, Band 20) 52 devices

1800 MHz (Band 3) 50 devices

2600 MHz (Band 7) 65 devices

800/1800/2600 MHz 43 devices

AWS (Band 4) 51 devices

Commercial LTE services are launched in 1800 MHz spectrum (LTE1800) by several operators in Europe, the Middle East, and APAC. Some 50 LTE1800 devices have been announced, with the number of LTE1800 devices tripling over the past 6 months.

The report shows how the range of LTE TDD devices is also expanding as operators in all regions are preparing for the commercial introduction of TDD systems. Some 44 LTE TDD user devices have been announced, according the the GMSA.

GSMA’s Wireless Intelligence forecasts more than 200 live LTE networks in over 70 countries by 2015, up from 40 networks in 24 countries today. The report notes that the IMT-extension band (2500/2600MHz) is the most globally harmonised band used in LTE deployments to date, accounting for over half of live networks in 2011.

Meanwhile, the number of LTE connections is forecast to grow from 7 million in 2011 to close to 300 million by 2015. More than two-thirds of global LTE connections today relate to deployments at 700MHz largely due to the large-scale rollouts underway in the United States by Verizon and AT&T.